Gihan Kumara, a grocer and newspaper vendor in the "little Jaffna" district, says the Oxford-educated foreign minister's death was a "big set back to the peace process and Sri
Lanka's international profile".

"He was the only man who could communicate our stand and situation well with
the outside world. It will take another 10 years to build on Mr Kadirgamar's efforts to unite the country," he says.

On the beach, 20-year-old Chandima Piyadharshini says: "All I know about Mr Kadirgamar was that he was killed yesterday. But there are killings every other day in Colombo and all over the country," she says.

Ms Piyadharshini is right. On the day of the assassination, a prominent television news presenter and her husband were gunned down in Colombo, possibly the outcome of a political feud.